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Pages in the Battle.net Section:

Warnings! - Many scams and dirty tricks have been perpetrated in the Diablo II world.  Rip offs in the trading window, trickery in the chat rooms, duping item scams, etc.  Get the low down on what the scoundrels are up to now, and protect yourself.

Gem in Chat - What does it do?  Unlock the secrets to the universe?  Shower you with more perfect gems than you can shake a stick at? Or something far more sinister?

Guild Halls - A planned feature pre-game, Guild Halls were cut late in the development cycle due to a last of time.  There was hope they'd return in the Expansion, but that didn't happen either.  Here you can read about what they would have been, and see exclusive screenshots of a Guild Hall, Guild Chevrons, and other associated artwork.

Arena Games - Another planned feature that didn't make it to the final game, Arenas were going to provide PvPers special places to battle, potentially for prizes and with a special ladder.  Post mortem them here.

The Party System - We all know how it works now, but at one time it was a very new and interesting feature.  Read about the early days of party planning.

Servers & Shards FAQ - Another old page with interesting early game info, this is from just after Blizzard announced how the Client/Server technology for Battle.net would work, back even before they were called "Realms".

General Features

Battle.net for Diablo II is much different than Battle.net for Diablo was.  The biggest change is that the whole chat interface was completely redesigned prior to release, as you can see here.  There were more options when you create a game, including a line to enter a description of the game (rather than having to do it in the game name, as in Diablo), as well as the game name and password.  A great new feature is the ability to limit the +/- character level of players joining your game.  Setting this to 3 or 5 +/- your character level will ensure that no much more powerful character can join in and slaughter you, or take all of the monster kills.  It's also important to play with characters near your own Clvl due to the way that shared experience works.  Full details on that on our Party System Page.

New Look for Battle.net

The New Battle.net Chat Interface

New Battle.net Look

We of course expected there to be a new look to Battle.net for Diablo II, but had not expected such a major change.  Blizzard North released the first shot of it in August, 1999, and then just a month later released another shot, with several changes already evident. One major difference is that the Battle.net interface is in 800x600 resolution, rather than 640x480 like the Diablo II gameplay.  This is useful to get more chat visible at one time, and it's not an issue in game performance, since any system can run Battle.net chat in 800x600, while the lower end systems would die on frame rate trying to run Diablo II in higher than 640x480 resolution.

With the advent of Lord of Destruction, the option to increase even the in-game resolution to 600x800 became a reality, much to the delight of all.

Expanding the Technology

On a technical aspect, Blizzard expanded Battle.net by including additional online capabilities and building a global network of Realms (or servers) using local Internet Service Providers.  A number of new servers were set up in Europe and Asia at the inception of Diablo II.  However, they did not prove able to handle the massive load of gamers trying to play the game with the largest early-release sales ever.  Over time, more servers were added and entire new Realms set up, particularly in Asia, and Blizzard has stepped to the plate to try to handle the enormous success that was an initial surprise, even to them.  And of course, the entire technology of Battle.net is much changed for Diablo II, with the client-server model, and at times that has put unpredicted strains on the B.net technology.

There have been numerous changes made to Battle.net during D2 and D2X, with more messaging features, the friends list, and much more.  See the Battle.net section of our D2X FAQ for full details.

Gameplay Changes

Changes to Diablo II are far too numerous to detail in their entirety, but here are some basic changes from Diablo to Diablo II that effect online play: The number of characters allowed in a game was increased from Diablo's four to eight.  The levels were too small in Diablo for more than four to be any fun, so even though it was technically possible, they had to limit it to four.  The Acts and levels are vastly larger in Diablo II, so up to eight can play in the same game.  Arena games were going to allow more, to permit guild warfare, but these never made it into the game or its expansion pack. The closed and open character types were a big new thing.

Closed chars are the no-hacking type, and are stored on the Battle.net servers.  Closed can be transferred to Open, but Open Characters may never become Closed Characters.   Open characters have been left in for those who simply can't resist the urge to dupe (copy game items) or "hack" their character by making him/her a Clvl 4,000.  Servers are called Realms, and only characters stored on the same Realm may play together.  There was some discussion early on that players might be given a way to transfer characters from realm to realm, but that never became an option.  Characters are born and die on the same server/realm.